'Big Short' investor Steve Eisman says the easy days of buying tech stocks to beat the market are over

Published Mon, Feb 27 20238:45 AM ESTUpdated Mon, Feb 27 202310:56 AM EST

Gone are the days when investors could win by simply buying technology stocks, Steve Eisman of "The Big Short" fame said Monday. "I think the days of people beating the market by just investing in tech are going to be over, and we're going to go to a new paradigm," Eisman, senior portfolio manager at Neuberger Berman, said on CNBC's " Squawk Box ." The widely followed investor who spotted the housing crisis before most believes that the surge in interest rates on the back of the Federal Reserve's aggressive tightening is creating a sea change in the investing world. The sharp rise in yields could dent the appeal for equities and hurt asset prices, especially those for growth-oriented stocks. "The paradigm that has existed for the last 10 years has been that because rates have been zero, and people have been paid to take risk. So they've invested in tech stocks, and they've invested in hyper growth stocks, meaning big revenue growth, no earnings, and valuation be damned," Eisman said. "I think the days of investing in companies that have no earnings or have multiples of 200 times will be gone." Some short-term Treasury yields have surged to the highest level since the global financial crisis amid the Fed's rate hikes. Six-month and one-year yields have both surpassed 5% for the first time since 2007. The investor said there's no comparable period to the environment today, with surging inflation, the Ukraine-Russia war and supply chain disruptions, and investors have to be extra picky, Eisman said. "I'm not saying you stop buying tech. I think you have to be selective, when you're talking about companies ... that have high revenue growth and have negative earnings," he said. "If I had to lay my life on the line, I would say we're probably going to have some type of recession ... how deep I have no idea. I just think it's such a difficult period," he added. Earlier in his career running a hedge fund at FrontPoint Partners, Eisman famously shorted subprime mortgage loans before the 2008 financial crisis, as chronicled in Michael Lewis' book "The Big Short" and the subsequent Oscar-winning movie of the same name. Eisman later launched his own fund, Emrys Partners, which he closed in 2014.